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#2sDayPoems, Anne Sexton, British Women's Poetry, ellen bass, Food Poems, Like a Beggar, Oysters, Selected Poems of Anne Sexton
The phenomenal poets Anne Sexton & Ellen Bass bring two different views on the much-loved, summer favorite:
OYSTERS
Oysters we ate,
sweet blue babies,
twelve eyes looked up at me,
running with lemon and Tabasco.
I was afraid to eat this father-food
and Father laughed and
drank down his martini,
clear as tears.
It was a soft medicine
that came from the sea into my mouth,
moist and plump.
I swallowed.
It went down like a large pudding.
Then I ate one o’clock and two o’clock.
Then I laughed and then we laughed
and let me take note –
there was a…
from Selected Poems of Anne Sexton
REINCARNATION
by Ellen Bass
Who would believe in reincarnation
if she thought she would return as
an oyster? Eagles and wolves
are popular. Even domesticated cats
have their appeal. It’s not terribly distressing
to imagine being Missy, nibbling
kibble and lounging on the windowsill.
But I doubt the toothsome oyster has ever
been the totem of any shaman
fanning the Motherpeace Tarot
or smudging with sage.
Yet perhaps we could do worse
than aspire to be a plump bivalve. Humbly,
the oyster persists in….
FULL TEXT HERE (w/ audio)
latest collection: Like a Beggar
British poet, Elizabeth Bartlett, passed away in 2008 at the age of 84. Her first collection appeared when she was well into her 50’s and drew high praise for her skill in evoking the lives and faces of the ordinary people she ran across in her work with the National Health Services. Critic Adam Thorpe, described her as “a kind of weird cross between Anne Sexton and Philip Larkin,” and editor Peter Forbes called her a chronicler of “damaged Britain”.
Bartlett’s work up to even those that would snub poetry.